Sunday, June 29, 2008

I've uploaded most of the pages from the sketchbook I worked in while we were in Israel. It's just a little book, 3.5" x 5.5" and about an inch thick. It's just a bit more than half full and is already one of the favorite things I own... my own little treasure, full of little drawings and notes to myself about things I saw and did.

I'm so amazed at the power of sketching/drawing while out and about in my world. Because I take time to SEE, to take in the scene with my eyes and ponder what's before me, the moment is captured in my memory and sticks like glue forever.

For example: my husband and I visited Australia in 1994 and I remember one part of that trip like it was yesterday... because I took time to sit and sketch some country houses. Even though the sketch is pitiful when I look at it I can remember where I was sitting, the sounds of the schoolyard down the street, the stone church behind me, and especially the fact that I left my camera behind which led to a wonderful Lost and Found story that was published in International Travel News.

Looking at my photos doesn't recall memories like sketching does. Sometimes I look at old photos and think, "where in the world did this batch of photos come from; surely I wasn't the one who took them because I can't remember a thing about it".

One teaches oneself to sketch; it's not something you learn in a class nor is it something that you're born to do. Perhaps the desire to learn in inborn or bred, and I do have the desire to make art. But if you've ever thought that you'd like to learn to draw or paint then I KNOW that you can learn to do it well enough to enjoy the process.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Two weeks of traveling in Israel infused my thinking with a completely new to me symbol... stones. The country is made of stone. The countryside is very rocky from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. Rocks are everywhere, and consequently all the buildings are made of rock, whether they are 2000 years old or built yesterday, and they are a uniform color... sort of yellow ochre-ish. Blocks of stone are cut and piled to make the walls of buildings and stones gathered out of the farmers fields are piled to create terraces and walls on the land.

One day we were poking around in the lowest reaches of a church in Jerusalem and found hundreds of little crosses scratched into the foundation walls. Were these messages of early Jesus-followers or simply an early form of graffiti? Whatever, they've already made their way into my artwork. Around the edges of this piece I've carved names of some of the places we visited. This piece is 16 X 12" and is on a cradled panel which is 2" deep.

Art Tip: Removing acrylic from hands

Use ordinary hand sanitizer to quickly remove acrylic paint and medium from your hands. The alcohol in the sanitizer dissolves the acrylic. Wipe well with a paper towel and then wash with soap and water.

Art Tip: brush cleaning

As I work with acrylic medium for glue or with acrylic paints I stand my brushes in a bucket of water on my work table and give them a soap and water cleanup every day or so. But eventually my brushes get gunky and sometimes I forget to clean them. That's when I clean them with Murphy's Oil Soap. I keep an inch of MOS mixed 1:1 with water in a tall plastic tub (Feta from Costco) and put caked brushes in that solution overnight. By the next day the soap has softened the brush and with a bit of elbow grease I can get the brushes back to useable. This also works for brushes used with oil paint. I gave up using oils but wanted to save those good brushes and Murphy's Oil Soap came to the rescue. Get it at the grocery store.